As is well known, the mouse is used widely as one of the user interfaces for operating a PC (Personal Computer). The mouse is moved on the desktop by the user to manipulate a pointer displayed on a monitor.
Recently, other user interfaces that use speech recognition have been attracting attention. These user interfaces, that recognize voice entered through a microphone and thereby allow sentences or the like to be entered, can be used instead of a keyboard. As an additional feature of speech recognition applications, something called a voice mouse or the like is available. The voice mouse allows the user to manipulate a pointer displayed on a monitor by uttering designated commands through a microphone without using a mouse.
However, prior art technologies for manipulating the pointer through speech recognition in the manner described above have the following problems.
First, to shift from normal speech recognition input mode to pointer manipulation mode, to move the pointer, to stop the pointer, to click or double-click, and so on, the user must utter appropriate commands. Therefore, the user must remember a large number of commands.
Also, the commands for moving the pointer include, for example, those that represent travel directions such as “Up,” “Down,” “Left,” “Right,” etc., distance of travel such as “5 cm,” etc., and speed of travel such as “Fast,” “Slow,” etc. It is difficult to point to a desired position on a screen swiftly using these commands properly.
Furthermore, to shift to pointer manipulation mode from normal speech recognition input mode, move the pointer to a desired position, and click on that position, the user must utter a number of commands one after another and may find this troublesome.
In addition, the user must move the pointer subtly, for example, to position the pointer on a small icon, but it is difficult to perform such manipulations using commands such as those described above.
Such pointer manipulation through speech recognition as described above is intended especially for users for whom it is difficult to manipulate a mouse manually, and thus improvement of usability presents an important challenge.
The present invention has been made to solve the above technical challenge. Its object is to provide a pointer position control method and the like for manipulating a pointer more easily.